6 Secret Brush Skills for Watercolor Painters:
Cutting Edges

Bands of Color  • Thick 'n' Thin •  Wrist Flick •  Painterly Strokes •  The Stab •  Cutting Edges
This exercise utilizes your skills in drawing and your brush control in painting edges of washes in various shapes. Use geometric shapes in a variety of sizes, and colors using the largest brush possible for each size. You have to know how to paint the shapes you see before you. Since we all know how a circle, square, triangle, rectangle, or star, looks you'll know immediately if you've succeeded. Painting shapes requires the use of several brush techniques you can develop simply by practicing them. I did.
Watercolor Brush Control: Cutting an Edge © 2008 Gregory Conley
Click to enlarge
Start by mixing up several pools of primary colors to work with.
For the larger shapes I'm using a round #8 Grumbacher Watercolor Classic red sable brush. I added smaller shapes with a round #4 Kolonok 1001 Series Kolinsky sable.
From my experience "cutting an edge" is a sign painter's term for pulling a clean line of paint with your brush. A clean line being a line that is smooth and flowing with no irregularities.
Notice the twisting motion controlling the upstroke of the circle shape.



Watercolor Brush Control: Cutting an Edge © 2008 Gregory Conley
Click to enlarge
Consider each shape before you start to paint. What is the minimum amount of brush strokes needed to create the edge of the shape?
A circle? One or two strokes. Triangle? Three. Square. Uh, four. You get the idea. The five-pointed stars were done several ways. I cut both edges of each arm on some (ten strokes), tried five thick'n'thin strokes, and drew a star doodle: one stroke, five intersecting lines.
If your brush is too full to get a proper point, touch it on a sponge, tissue, or towel to remove excess paint before you start.



Watercolor Brush Control: Cutting an Edge © 2008 Gregory Conley
Click to enlarge
While you have one color in your brush try painting all the different shapes across the page in that one color. Rinse your brush out, switch colors, and repeat.
For sharp corners use the very tip of your brush and start the brush stroke at the corner point of the shape.
For circular shapes, start your curving brush stroke inside the edge of the shape and pull the stroke into position before continuing the stroke.
Switch to a smaller brush and try some mini shapes. Happy painting!
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